Flames rising: Liberty lacrosse defeats Clemson 14-8 on Senior Day

The Liberty University Flames honored their seniors and outscored the Clemson Tigers 14-8 on a spring day that concluded the Flames’ season on their home field.

Leading the team was senior midfielder Keaton Mohs with a hat trick and one assist. Mohs was not alone in his success against the Tigers. Junior midfielder Will Geary, senior attacker Braden Landry, freshman Hunter Rockhill and freshman attacker Easton Cahill all had pairs of goals. 

The Flames started the game with a bang as Geary netted his team’s first in the opening 30 seconds. The Tigers responded four minutes later, putting their first goal on the board. Neither team could pull away with a lead as they traded off goals, resulting in four more ties in the half and leaving the score 5-5 heading into the third quarter. 

“The message at halftime was just to continue what we were doing, and we knew that things would start breaking our way,” Flames Head Coach Kyle McQuillan said. “We needed to stop feeding them. They were getting all their production off of our mistakes. We needed to make them earn it.”

The message hit home for the Flames, who started the third quarter strong with goals from Landry and sophomore attacker Luke Branham, as well as two from Mohs. The Flames stepped up their game defensively and stole the momentum, leaving the Tigers scoreless in the third quarter. McQuillan credited a large part of this defensive turnaround to senior goalie Eric Warnstrom.

“(Eric) didn’t have the greatest first half, but to his credit, he came out in the second half, and we put him in some better positions. I think he responded really well in not only giving us some saves but moving the ball in transition and giving us the opportunity to score in the break,” McQuillan said.

“I just forget the past and move on. Goals happen, tough things happen. My brain’s got to be on the next save; make the most of the next opportunity you have,” Warnstrom said.

Warnstrom added that he thought the Flames didn’t have the strongest start in the first half, but the team picked up its energy after halftime, which contributed to the successful third quarter. 

“We had some big stops on defense. Offense turned it around and put it in the back of their cage,” Warnstrom said.

Clemson started the fourth quarter with two quick goals within the first four minutes, but Mohs didn’t allow that run to last long, as he responded with his third goal of the day. The Tigers put one more goal past Warnstrom, but Geary finished out the game with the final goal of the day for his team.

Geary was a player whom McQuillan was specifically impressed with, praising his midfielder for intentionality in his shots against the Tigers.

“(Geary) was a guy I felt was very even keel, in the moment, and had some big energy goals in the second half,” McQuillan said. 

McQuillan believed that this wasn’t the Flames’ best performance. He said that while it’s hard to get upset over a win on a beautiful day when the seniors were honored, he thinks that the team did not play to the standards that they set for themselves. 

While this was the Flames’ last home game, the team has much to look forward to. Playoff season is right around the corner, and McQuillan is appreciative that he doesn’t have to say a real goodbye to his seniors quite yet.

“The nice thing about Senior Day is we don’t get too nostalgic or emotional because we’ve still got everything ahead of us in terms of what we want to accomplish,”
McQuillan said. “This is one of these moments where we get to recognize them and send them off from this home field, a place that they’ve called home for a long time.”

The team will get one last chance to play to the standards that McQuillan wants to see when it plays James Madison University April 14 before heading to the playoffs. 

Mullet is a sports reporter for the Liberty Champion.